


wooden tongue

by fourshoesfrank



Category: John Wick (Comics), John Wick (Movies)
Genre: 3+1, Autism Spectrum, Autistic John Wick, F/M, Gen, Nonverbal Character, Pre-Canon, Semiverbal Character, Sports, allistics gonna get SCHOOLED on how to write this stuff, ballet performances, because I said so, blame the high fantasy stuff i grew up reading, john did fencing and track and wrestling and ballet, ppl say im heavy on the exposition but....., this was gonna be a 5+1 but nah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-05-19 09:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19354297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourshoesfrank/pseuds/fourshoesfrank
Summary: John keeps going nonverbal at the most inopportune times.





	1. Christmas Eve, 1977

**Author's Note:**

> ok so i’m in a bit of a conundrum here. the comics seem to imply that John grew up in Mexico/Texas, joined the marines, went to prison, then became an assassin; whereas the movies’ version of events has him growing up in a group of Rromani people in Belarus (his name, Jardanai/Jardani is Caló, but they’re mostly in the Iberian peninsula, so i’m not sure what to go off of lol), immigrating to the US to live with the ballet lady, serving in the military at some point, then becoming an assassin. i’m not sure how to merge the two together, so for this fic i’m using his movie backstory, but with the addend from the comics about his time in prison. i hope that’s clear lol

“What’s your name?”

  
Jardani wants to answer the policeman’s question, he doesn’t want to go to jail for not answering a policeman in the United States of America, but he can’t make himself say anything. He shakes his head, feels the wind of an approaching subway train whip his too-long hair against his forehead, and hopes the policeman won’t hurt him.

  
“Do you speak English, kid?”

  
_Yes_ , Jardani wants to say. _I’m only thirteen, but I know how to speak three languages._ He knows Belarusian, Russian, and English, plus a little bit of Ukranian. He knows how to understand three and a half languages, but he can’t speak at all right now. He can’t speak and there’s a policeman trying to talk to him.

  
The most he can do is nod in answer to the man’s question. Yes, he does speak English.

  
Jardani doesn’t think this will end well. It didn’t start well either. He was reaching into a sleeping old man’s briefcase in a subway station when the policeman grabbed Jardani’s hand and dragged him away. He wanted to punch away the strange hand on his shoulder, but when he realized that a policeman caught him trying to steal, Jardani’s anger turned to fear.

  
That same feeling of cold, hard fear still sits in his stomach, and his chest is starting to feel queasy. He is in trouble, and his body knows it.

  
“Listen, kid, I don’t know what the hell your problem is, but you gotta give me a name. If I lock you up for stealing and I don’t know your name, I won’t know who your parents are, so I won’t call them down to the station, so you’ll be stuck in the police station, locked up, all through Christmas.” Jardani knows that the man is exaggerating, trying to be scary, and he wants to tell him that it isn’t needed. Jardana is plenty scared already. He must not be showing it, though, if the policeman is trying to make him even more scared.

  
“Dammit, kid, you soft in the head or something? Answer the goddamn question. Just tell me your name.”

  
He can’t. He can’t. He tries anyway.

  
_Jardanii Jovonovich._

  
He can’t. His vocal chords feel dead, his tongue weighs a million pounds and is made of wood. He knows that if he answers this question, he’ll feel bad the next morning. He’ll be tired, he won’t want to move, he’ll try to hide away in the silence of the hidden room backstage, and because of all that he’ll be in trouble. The Director does not let anyone skip practice if they can still get up and put on their uniform.

  
“Your name!” A fleck of the policeman’s spit lands on Jardani’s cheek. “You stupid little bastard, what’s your name!” It isn’t a question anymore, it’s an order, but Jardani can’t obey it. He’s been unconsciously looking for a way to escape ever since he saw the man’s shiny badge, and now, he has to use it. The two of them have been having this one-sided conversation at a quiet end of the subway platform, so there are no people to bump into when Jardani makes a run for it.

  
He breaks into a sprint almost instantly. He’d never do that in a race against the other kids in the theater, he’d never skip the _drive_ part of the dash, but this isn’t a sport. This is life or death. Freedom or being stuck in the police station. Jardani runs toward the stairway that will take him out of the partly empty subway station and into the crowded sidewalks of New York City. He can hear the policeman close behind him, panting and cursing and shouting into his radio for some backup, but Jardani knows he won’t get caught if he can just make it out of the station. He pounds his feet into each step of the dingy metal-and-stone staircase that is his personal pathway to freedom. The policeman is still shouting into his radio.

Finally, Jardani feels the bitter sting of New York winter air, and he eases out of his sprint. He doesn’t stop, stopping would mean getting caught, but he isn’t running with such urgency anymore. He focuses on his breathing: inhaling when his left foot hits the ground, still inhaling when his right foot hits the ground, then finally exhaling when his left foot hits the ground again. He isn’t too worried about where he’s going now. All he has to know is that there’s a clear path in front of him, and every step takes him further away from the policeman, whose shouts are growing increasingly faint.

  
In left hold right out left hold right. In left hold right out left hold right. Remember to breathe in the nose out the mouth. Keep the air warm and keep the liver’s ride smooth. Don’t let the arms cross. Keep the feet dorsiflexed. His instructor's words beat themselves into his brain as he runs farther and farther away from the policeman.

  
Jardani turns off the street and into an alley when he’s sure the policeman won’t see him do it. He’s panting from the exertion, the arches of his feet are burning from running too far in these thin-soled tennis shoes, and his nose is tingling from all the freezing cold air that rushed through it. Jardani feels good, though. He likes running.

  
He runs all the way back to the theater, his mood improving with each stride. He’s almost smiling by the time he knocks on the ticket collection window. Jardani may have missed an opportunity to get some money, but at least he got a good run in.

  
His face is just beginning to break into a real smile when the ticket collector asks for the password, and Jardani remembers that his vocal chords are made of lead and his tongue weighs ten thousand pounds, and his good mood crashes immediately. He breathes a long stream of air through his mouth to try and loosen things up a bit, but it doesn’t seem to help. The collector blows a bubble with her gum while she waits for him to either spit out the password that only students are told, or give up. If he gives up, he’ll have to find somewhere else to sleep.

  
Jardani doesn’t like to go around the city hunting down people with an empty spot on their couch, or shelters that aren’t almost full (full of people and full of too-strong smells). He really prefers to sleep in the theater, where he has his own bed in a room of a hundred other boys who know more than one language and are learning to fight alongside him. If only his mouth would let him say the password. _Toenail_. That’s it, that’s all he has to say. He has to say the word for toenail. It should be easy.

  
Jardani jogs a circle around the building, trying to make his tongue a little lighter and his vocal chords a little livelier. It might be working. He slows down to a walk so he can try humming. Humming usually speeds this process up, and Jardani wants to speed things up so he can be in bed as soon as possible. There is a Christmas ballet performance tomorrow (for all he knows, it could be after midnight already, the performance might be _today_ ) and he wants to be as rested as any pupil of the Director's can possibly be.

  
He rounds the corner and faces the ticket collector once again. He opens his mouth. This is it. He’s already making a list of places that usually let sweaty, foreign kids spend a night out of the elements. He really doesn’t think he’ll be able to say the password, but that’s okay. It won’t be the end of the world.

  
“Пазногці,” he says. It’s almost a whisper, almost a croak, but the girl in the ticket booth obviously hears him and obviously understands Belarusian.

  
“Close enough,” she says with a shrug, and the door opens.


	2. Team Building, 1980

Jardani doesn’t actually know when his birthday is. He thinks it’s around the beginning of September, but he’s not sure what day he was actually born on. He tells people it’s the second of September, because he likes the number two, but he has no idea if that’s correct. He’s an orphan. They don’t get the luxury of correct birthdates.

If he wasn’t raised in a place full of other orphans and disowned children, Jardani might have felt out of place. Growing up in the Director's theater, though, he was just another one of many kids without a birthday. Most of them just made one up, like Jardani. A few of the smarter children tried to find their birth certificates to find out for sure, but nobody ever succeeded.

  
The Director's people are just that good. When a child is given into her care, the chance that they’ll ever leave is very small. Because almost nobody leaves, a...not a friendly atmosphere, but a non-hostile atmosphere was needed to allow the children to actually learn. The Director wants her pupils to fear their instructors, not their classmates.

  
And so, the yearly team building day was born. Jardani doesn’t like it that much, but he’s in the minority. Most of the other pupils will jump at anything to avoid another lesson. Jardani doesn’t like most of his lessons, but he’ll tolerate them. He likes the sports. Wrestling, boxing, fencing (sometimes with real swords, sometimes with typical fencing equipment), running (they don’t call it track because there isn’t a track inside the theater), and, surprisingly, ballet are the ones he likes. The other lessons, about judo and karate and jiu-jitsu and about twenty other martial arts disciplines, are boring. Jardani knows they’ll come in handy, but he doesn’t enjoy taking them. Whenever the team building day replaces a martial arts lesson, he’s happy.

  
This year, 1980, Jardani is missing his fencing lesson because of team building. He’s not happy. They were just about to start using swords with real blades instead of the blunt-edged sabres, and Jardani was looking forward to that. Now, all he has to look forward to is drinking bad Slavic beer and listening to the bad jokes of the other people in his fencing class. They’re all sixteen, all from various Slavic countries (most of them are from Slavic backgrounds, but a few are 'ethnically ambiguous', like him), and they’re all loud, especially when they’re drunk.

  
Jardani doesn’t like beer. He thinks it tastes like wood. He also doesn’t like the people that are always with him when he drinks beer: the loud people he takes his lessons with. They annoy him when he’s sober and they become even more annoying when he’s drunk, because he usually can’t think of a good line to make them leave him alone. It’s impossible to think that Jardani and _them_ could ever bond as part of a team.

  
The Director's people try to make them bond, though. Jardani does not enjoy it. He’s sixteen, the team building days have been happening every year since he was eight, and he’s sick of them. Twice, he’s taken a few questionable pills so he could fake being ill and miss the team building activities. He doesn’t think he could pull that off for a third time, unfortunately.

  
Jardani just has to shove his discomfort and annoyance deep down inside, drink his wooden beer, and try not to injure anyone for the entire day. This won’t be a problem.

  
The party is held in the room that most of the younger boys sleep in. All their beds have been shoved to one side, and the newly available space is full of long tables and a lot of teenagers. The teens’ team building is inside this year, while the younger children are allowed to play on the roof of the theater. Next year, they’ll switch.

  
Of course, Jardani and the other pupils aren’t totally on their own for the day. The instructors, the Director's attack dogs, are loitering around each and every exit in the room. People have tried to leave the building for good on team building days. It never goes well. Jardani watches a group of girls whisper in a corner of the room, two of them sitting on the small beds and one of them sitting cross-legged on the floor. No doubt they’re trying to get out.

  
They’re smart, using the background noise of the other students to hide their conversation. Jardani would’ve done the same thing if he was planning to get out.

  
Nobody says escape. They’re not actually being prevented from leaving, there are just...consequences that result from leaving that are unpleasant.

  
Jardani sees no reason to leave. He takes advantage of the shortened lessons on Sundays and holidays to get outside the theater and make some money. Almost all the other students do the same. The Director doesn’t care, as long as everyone is always performing well on the stage.

  
Jardani stops watching the girls talk. He probably looks creepy, staring at them. He grabs one of the bad beers and sits down at a table that has some of the quieter kids. Technically, he’s supposed to be with his fencing class, but they don’t like him. He doesn’t mind. The feeling is mutual.

  
“Hey, Jardani,” a tall girl greets him after he’s sat down. She gestures at him with a playing card, and he notices that almost everyone at this table has a stack in front of them. “I’ll deal you in if you want me to,” the girl offers. Her Polish accent is strong, just like her body. She used to be in his wrestling class, and she often gave Jardani a tough match. She was one of the few who could.

  
_Sounds like fun_ , Jardani thinks in response, then frowns. He shouldn’t be thinking his reply, he should be saying it out loud. He tries to speak a second time, but he can’t.

  
Not today. Of all the times for him to lose his words, today, the team building day, was one of the worst times. Jardani clears his throat, because sometimes he can force a word or two out after doing so, but today, nothing happens. His left hand clenches his beer bottle tightly, but he has to resist the urge to break it. He’ll have to pay for it if he breaks it.

  
The other teens give him the look that he’s been getting from people for his entire life. _Why aren’t you talking_ , the look says. _We know you can speak. Why aren’t you_. Jardani still hasn’t figured out how to respond to that look, so he looks down at the table and sighs quietly. This was easier to hide when he was younger, and people would just let him leave the conversation.

  
But there hasn’t been a conversation yet this time. He’s been greeted, offered a hand of cards, and that’s it. He hasn’t responded. He can’t.

  
Jardani knows that if he joins the game, he’ll be expected to join the conversation that goes with the game. He’ll be expected to comment on the other players’ decisions and laugh when somebody drops out of the game. He won’t be able to do that right now. His tongue is wooden, just like his beer.

Jardani shakes his head, clears his throat one more time, and stands up from the table. He’ll find something else to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love going wild with backstory conjecture can yall tell


	3. Meeting Winston, 1990

Jonathan Wick has a nice ring to it, as far as names go. It’s short, but interesting, and it doesn’t make him sound foreign. He tried to join the Marines with the name Jardani Jovonovich. He only tried once, because he barely stepped into the office before his paperwork was given back to him with a big ‘Rejected’ stamp on it in bright red ink. 

He tried again several months later, this time after he had paid someone a lot of money to change his name. John Wick. It has a nice ring to it. He got in, and quickly established himself as one of the best snipers on US soil.

John served for a few years before he got himself dishonorably discharged and put into prison in Mexico. Two years wasn’t that bad, but he would’ve preferred to avoid prison altogether. 

Beggars can’t be choosers. John’s been a beggar ever since seven-year-old Jardani Jovonovich had to beg some criminals to take him to the United States. 

But now John is out of prison, and he’s on his way to New York for a job interview. He’s not entirely sure that the job will have him doing legal work, since he learned about it from another inmate, but at this point, John will do anything to take back control of his own life. First the military, then the justice system, both trying to mold him into what all the success stories are like. John doesn’t want to be a success story; that will either happen, or it won’t. He just wants to be John Wick. 

The plane ride to the La Guardia airport is almost painfully uneventful. There’s no turbulence, so screaming baby, nobody snores too loudly; nothing happens. John has a window seat near the back of the plane. Next to him is an old man who has been grading high school science lab reports for the entire plane ride. After about an hour of watching the clouds go by and thinking about the job in New York, John lets himself fall asleep.

He wakes up from his nap about fifteen minutes before landing. He exits the plane with his carry-on and walks out into New York City in a kind of daze. He never thought he’d come home under these circumstances. Subconsciously, he never thought he’d come home at all.

He’s only been away for six years. That’s not a long time as far as buildings and infrastructure are concerned, but when it comes to the underground, the crime scene, a lot can change in six months, never mind six whole years. 

John has to figure out what field he’s playing on before he picks a team to play for. He has to learn about how all the old crime families are doing, if any new powers have risen during his time away, and if the theater is still housing the Director’s school. He has so many questions. 

He hails a taxi when it starts to rain. He’s about two hours away from where the man to interview him for the supposed job will be, and their meeting is in an hour and a half. John wants to be on time. He asks the taxi driver to take him to the Continental Hotel. It takes him a few tries, because his damn tongue had to go and turn wooden again that morning, but John manages. He can still talk, it just takes more effort. His emphatic pointing to a map the driver offered him might have helped things along. 

The hotel looks...big. Important. It’s an imposing building that looks pretty much like any other establishment rich people like to patronize. John doesn’t let himself get his hopes up. They probably won’t hire him, no matter how qualified he is. 

He walks through the doorway without having to open the door, because there’s a _doorman_ at the entrance to do it for him. John really can’t imagine working in a place like this. 

“Welcome to the Continental,” the concierge says when John approaches the front desk. “How may I help you?”

“I’m here to speak to the manager,” John answers. “John Wick. He’s waiting for Jonathan Wick.” It’s a miracle he’s able to spit that out, and it’s an even bigger miracle that the words came out sounding pretty natural, not forced  

The concierge nods. “Yes, the Manager has been expecting you, sir. Please, follow me.” John notes the way the word ‘Manager’ sounds like a proper noun coming from the other man. It’s weird. 

He leads John through a dining area, into the kitchen, and down a staircase in a broom closet. John follows, wondering why the hell any hotel manager (or Manager) would hold a job interview in the basement of the kitchen, or why the entrance to said basement would be so well hidden. That’s even weirder than turning Manager into a proper noun. 

The concierge interrupts John’s thoughts with the announcement, “Sir, Mr. Jonathan Wick is here to see you.”

John isn’t sure what the expect the capital-M Manager of the Continental Hotel (who wants someone to perform illegal activities) to be like, but his expectations, whatever they are, are completely wrong. The man is about five foot eight, wears glasses, and has gray hair despite having a face that doesn’t look much older than forty-five. Maybe he went gray early from stress. It can’t be easy, managing a hotel and dipping into illegal shit on the side. 

“Ah, Mr. Jovonovich,” the Manager says in greeting, and John’s heart drops clear down into his stomach cavity. He hasn’t heard that name in a long time, and hasn’t identified with it for even longer. How the hell did this man know what name John had used for the first twenty-two years of his life?

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t offer to shake your hand, of course, I’m afraid I have a bad cold. Please, sit down.” The man takes his own advice and lowers himself into a simple wooden chair near the side of the room opposite the door. John sees an identical chair near it, and sits down. He doesn’t say anything. 

Come to think of it, John’s not sure he  can  say anything. The shock of being called his birth name, plus the fact that he’s bone-tired despite his nap on the plane, is not doing him any favors. He can feel his vocal chords stiffening, his throat closing up, his tongue turning to wood. Can he get through this job interview (if that’s really what this is) with just nods and shakes of his head?

“Charon, we’ll be alright. You can go back upstairs.”

The concierge (Charon, apparently) leaves the room without another word. John’s starting to feel like he was set up to meet this manager, and be alone with him. 

“No doubt you’re wondering why I’ve called you by your birth name, Jonathan. I need us to be on the same page, here. I know the role you used to play here in New York City, you must have realized that by now. Do you know who I am?”

John shakes his head. 

“My name is Winston. That’s not a surname, nor is it a given name. It is simply my name. I run the Continental Hotel. Do you know what that means, Mr. Jovonovich?”

_It’s a hotel for rich people_ _. You probably host grad parties and shit, while you launder money or sell coke on the side._   John shakes his head again. Something about the way Winston says ‘hotel’ makes John think that isn’t all this place is. 

“The Continental is a very special kind of hotel. We cater to those who do not operate strictly within written municipal law. Our clientele are a dangerous bunch, of course, so there are a few ground rules in place. The most important rule is this: no business may be conducted on Continental grounds. You would do well to remember this. Will you remember that, Mr. Jovonovich?”

John nods. Business...business meaning killing people? Is that what Winston is interviewing him for? John just finished serving a prison sentence for killing someone. He’s not too eager to go back. He should’ve known this was too good to be true the moment he stepped through the door. What would an upscale hotel be doing, hiring an ex-con immigrant like him?

“I can see from your expression, Jonathan, that you’re having some misgivings. If you’re worried about the job that I’m offering you, why don’t you voice your concerns? I’m not like prison guards or military officers; I value the input of my employees. What do you want to ask me?”

The problem is, he sounds so genuinely interested. If John didn’t know better, if he’d just started losing his words instead of living the majority of his life without them, he might be believing Winston’s concerned facade. But John knows it’s a facade. He’s just a few years shy of thirty years old, and he’s learned how to read people in his twenty-six years. He may not be very good at figuring out emotions, but he sure is good at determining whether someone is telling the truth or not. 

Winston doesn’t want to hear John’s input. He just wants to see if John can talk at all right now. He’s feeling out a weakness. John has no choice but to shake his head and wait for the Manager’s reaction. 

“Ah, no words? That’s fine, I have prepared for this. The Director told me that you tend to go...nonverbal, as I understand it. This will not affect your work. You won’t need to talk much, just look through a scope and pull a trigger.”

Huh. 

If the Director knows that John is back, he’ll never be able to go beyond her reach. He may as well accept Winston’s offer, become a sniper, for now. 

_Hire me_ , John wants to say, but he can’t do that, so he offers Winston his hand to shake. The other man doesn’t take it, reminding John that he has a cold. Right. They settle for an exchange of smooth, professional nods instead. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y’all should comment......feed the beast.........the beast is my motivation to write


	4. The Fifth Date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they never told us much about helen so i made a bunch of shit up

Helen still isn’t sure what to think of John Wick. He’s sweet, he can be funny, he’s left handed, and he speaks too many languages for her to count. That’s all good, and if the list ended there, Helen would be fine with it. But the list keeps going.

  
John won’t tell Helen where he’s from, beyond the vague answer of “Eastern Europe.” He hasn’t really told her what he does for a living. She knows John works for a sketchy Russian company, and he’s mentioned that he travels a lot for work, and he learned the skills needed for his job during his time in the military. Helen doesn’t know what he actually does, though, and that bothers her, especially since John knows exactly what Helen does for a living. She’s a professor of electrical engineering at a local university. She talks about her job all the time.

  
She also talks about her family, how her mother is doing in the new assisted living apartment, her nephew’s endless frustrations with high school, her sister’s new job; whatever comes to mind, really. The point is, John knows about her family, but she doesn’t know anything about his. Maybe they live in Eastern Europe, maybe they’re New Yorkers, maybe they’re estranged from John, they might even be dead; the point isn’t which of these possibilities is true, it’s that any one of them _could_ be true based on the information Helen has.

  
Not only is John keeping her in the dark on his family, he also won’t tell her anything about his childhood. He acts as if his life before the Marines didn’t happen, like John Wick just sprang into existence the moment his enlistment form was accepted.

  
Helen still likes him. John’s sweet, and she always feels at ease around him. He’s a little too realistic sometimes, not letting her daydream out loud the way her other partners have, but she can live with that. It’s probably good for her.

  
They’ve been on four dates (at least, Helen’s sure the last three of them have been dates; the first one was kind of an accident) and all four have been enjoyable experiences. The two of them always find something to talk about, even if Helen does most of the talking for both of them.

  
Today, she’s inviting John to a ballet performance at a small-ish theater in Brooklyn. A friend of hers is on the stage crew there, so Helen got good seats at a slight discount. The ballet is a version of the Princess and the Frog story. Helen hopes it won’t seem too juvenile.

  
John meets her at the theater and they find their seats without any hiccups. They’re a little early. The performance doesn’t start for another fifteen minutes, which leaves them time to talk. At first, Helen isn’t sure what they’re going to talk about, but John surprises her by bringing up the origin of the fairytale that the ballet is based on. It’s from Germany, apparently.

  
“The story actually might be from Belarus,” John amends, “But they don’t know for sure.” Of course they don’t. Helen notes the way his face changes when he mentions that country. For a moment, John sort of looked younger.

  
“That’s in Eastern Europe,” Helen replies, taking the conversation off the beaten path and into the mystery of John’s birthplace. “Maybe you’re from there, maybe that’s why you like this story so much.”

  
Her tone is light, and the statement is just speculation, but John apparently takes it the wrong way. His head snaps around faster than Helen’s eyes can follow, and he stares at her like she’s just threatened his life. He doesn’t say anything, just sits there looking startled. Helen hasn’t moved, aside from a small, instinctive flinch to the side. She scoots forward a bit and settles into the seat properly, facing the stage. She checks her watch. The ballet will begin in four minutes. Maybe it’s better if they pick up their conversation later, during intermission.

  
“We’ll talk about it later,” Helen decides, and John gives her a nod. They both turn to look down at the stage, watching the dancers twirl and skip to the music of the organ, and they stay in that position until the intermission begins.

  
“So, what do you think of it so far?” Helen asks him as soon as the lights turn on in the theater. She watches John shrug and smile in response to her question, but she doesn’t hear him answer.

  
This doesn’t deter her in the slightest. John is quiet most of the time, so this isn’t that unusual. He looks like he’s having fun, and Helen sees no reason to be concerned.  
“I think it’s pretty good. That girl’s costume, the one with the shiny plaid pattern...I love it. It’s so well done.”

  
John nods in agreement. “Yeah,” he mutters, almost too quietly for Helen to hear, without looking at her. That’s weird, he usually at least points his head in her direction when he speaks to her, but now he’s staring off at something on the stage with unfocused eyes. Helen is starting to worry, just a little. Maybe her comment about Belarus offended him.

  
“Was I out of line, earlier, when I said something about you being from Belarus?” she asks, because she’ll probably never find out the answer if she doesn’t directly ask the question. John tends to bury conflicts. That’s another thing she’s not sure about, as far as their relationship goes.

  
John shrugs. “It’s true,” he mutters. Oh, that makes sense. Helen never thought she’d find out where her boyfriend was born in quite this way, but she plans to just roll with it. They’re at a ballet and she randomly guessed what country he’s from, because she didn’t know that very important piece of information beforehand. Helen shakes her head slightly and smiles to herself. This is just so _weird_.

  
John is looking at her now with a borderline vulnerable look on his face. It’s a big surprise to her, because he’s been pretty stoic for the last four dates. She takes a moment to really look at this expression of his before she responds to him.

  
“That’s nice, John. But really, did I offend you, or something? You seem...off.” Yeah, _off_ is the best way to describe the vibe she’s getting from him at this moment. Not exactly wrong, just off.

  
John takes a deep breath, erasing all traces of that vulnerable look from his face as he does so. He starts to say something, but just as the first syllable leaves his mouth, the lights in the theater dim and the stage curtain begins to rise. Intermission is over, time for the show to continue. John slowly closes his mouth, thinks for a moment, then decides, “Tell you after.”

  
See, that’s what’s off. John’s sentences are too short, too brisk, too strained, like he’s forcing the sounds past a blockage in his throat. That’s weird; the only thing Helen can think of that could be the reason for that is an actual blockage in his throat. But those don’t just appear in the middle of the day, and they especially don’t just appear in men who haven’t eaten for almost fifteen hours. There is no food to cause a blockage. This is something else.

  
Helen doesn’t have any idea what else it could be, short of some psychological condition that prevented John from speaking...

  
Holy shit. Why hasn’t Helen put the puzzle pieces together yet? Her niece, a real darling, is autistic, has autism, whatever phrasing the community thinks is alright these days, and Helen spends almost every other weekend with that niece and she notices her niece’s behavior and now that she thinks about it her niece acts a _lot_ like John does. John is probably autistic.

  
Turning her attention away from the ballet, Helen wracks her brain for the word that applies to their current situation. Voice, words, verb, verbal, _nonverbal_. If John is autistic, then this is definitely what going nonverbal looks like.

  
She’s fine with that. She should probably say so.

  
“Hey, John,” Helen begins, speaking in a low voice just shy of a whisper, because they _are_ in a fairly crowded theater, “if you can’t talk right now, that’s fine. Just tell me when you’re ready.”

  
He gives her a tiny nod and turns away from the stage to smile at her. She smiles back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i know..........helens narrative voice sounds way younger than a woman in her forties............idk how to write old people thinking............i’m in high school............maybe she picked up speech patterns from the college students she teaches idk


End file.
